They don't make 'em like they used to

I recently had the chance to admire my stepbrother’s newly refurbished circa 1970 1200cc Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He mentioned to me that the mechanic he had hired to refurbish his Hog was reluctant to return it to his custody because it was such a classic bike and they didn’t make bikes like that anymore. Which aroused this question in my mind:

Why DON’T “they make 'em like they used to”? I understand that over time new techniques are developed, tastes change, features get added, advances are engineered, etc., but if a company gets a given product RIGHT a certain time around, why don’t they just keep on turning out that product the way it is? Or if demand gets maxed out, go back to the “classic” specs in five or ten years? Yeah retro products pop up occasionally (like the new VW Bug or the PT Cruiser) but if something like a '68 Corvette is so coveted, why not just churn out more '68 Corvettes using the same manufacturing techniques and materials that they used 33 years ago?

Well, just one or two thoughts: it’s hard to know when you have it Right. You may think you have a better idea, which people end up not liking as much.

Also, making things “the way they used to” is often more expensive. Technological advances (development of plastics, for instance) make it possible to do things cheaper, which ends up making things look, well, cheaper.

There’s probably several reasons that companies, particularly automobile companies, don’t keep making things the same way.

Henry Ford had a successful design with the Model T and for a few years it was the #1 selling car in the United States. But while other companies were experimenting with new design concepts Ford refused to recognize that his car had to change with the times. What eventually happened was that Chevrolet finally managed to outsell Ford. If you don’t change your product then customers will flock to your competition.

When you want a car in 2001 do you want it built to the specifications of a car from 1968? While many people might look fondly at a classic car I doubt many would want a new car built like an antique. Automobiles of today have things that are standard which would have been luxury items 30 years ago. I’m pretty sure that motorcycles have gotten better over the years as well.

Automobile companies are in the business of selling new cars not antiques. Although Ford sure does license out their Mustang logo to a lot of companies that produce factory spec Mustang parts.

Marc

In the case of Harleys ‘not making them like they used to’ is not necassarily a bad thing.

If you look at basic stuff on old Harleys you will see things like the engine casing castings are poorly finished.

The clutch was even heavier than it is now, suspension was non-existant, reliability poor but it always easy and cheap to fix the problem.

The gear change was even slower than it is now, its a blessing that Harleys are such torquey machines and that changing gear is optional.

If you look at the advance in ability and performance of motorcycles since those days it becomes obvious why it is not viable to continue producing the same thing.

Another manufacturer around at the same time, Triumph, failed to keep up with improvements in design especially after the introduction in 1968 of the legendary Honda CB750, and the result is that it went bust.

For Harley too those were crisis years as the Japs swept all before them with reliability, power, looks, minimum maintenance and an ability to keep oil inside the engine rather than leak it out over the driveway.

IIRC Harley themselves were never far away from folding in those days and one desperate play was the introduction of a new machine in around 1972 largely built from parts used in other models.
This bike, I can never remember those letter combinations possibly the FXDX, was designed to take the look of a customer modified bike but straight out the factory gates.

That bike might just be the most significant machine ever made since worldwide around 50% of machines sold are of the custom cruiser variety, every major manufacturer has something along that style in its livery.

Had Harley continued making the bikes it did in 1970 it would have gone the way of Indian.

Then again, they never did.

For your money products are much better today.

“They don’t make 'em like they used to”.

If they were really made that well, then why are so few of them remaining today?

There is one car company that still makes 'em like they used to, Morgan. I don’t think they make their own engines, they buy them from one of the big manufacturers like Ford, so those have kept up with the times. But new Morgans still look like those from the '50s, and they’re still built around a wood frame. They probably only make a few hundred a year, but there’s a waiting list.

Casdave is right. Harleys made in the 70’s were some of the worst ever. If your step-bro’s is an AMF Harley, then it probably leaks oil. AMF tried to mass produce Harley’s in factories that weren’t set up to pump out as many bikes as they were trying to. Quality suffered terribly.

If the mechanic was simply talking about the way the bike looked, then I can’t argue. A classic looking bike is always a thing of beauty.